The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was arguably the foremost Black leader in the U.S. in the years between the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and the emergence of Sen. Barack Obama as a national political figure in 2004, died Tuesday (Feb. 17). He was 84.
Jackson, who had battled the neurodegenerative condition progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) for more than a decade, died at home surrounded by family. His daughter, Santita Jackson, confirmed his death with the Associated Press. Jackson was originally diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2017 before the PSP diagnosis was confirmed in April.
“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the Jackson family said in a statement they posted online. “We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family. His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.”
Motown founder Berry Gordy released a statement hours later in which he said, “I am deeply saddened by the passing of my dear friend, Reverend Jesse Jackson Jr. Jesse was not only a towering leader of the Civil Rights Movement — he was family. He stood with me, with my family, with Motown, and with our community through moments of hope, struggle, and profound change. He stood with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and it was Jesse who brought Dr. King to Hitsville in 1963, just days before the historic Great March to Freedom in Detroit — a moment that forever connected music, movement, and mission.
“In the most difficult and uncertain times, Jesse never failed to remind us of what we were fighting for. His courage, his faith, and his unwavering belief in justice gave strength to countless people, myself included. Even as the road grew harder in recent years, Jesse never surrendered his spirit. He fought with dignity, purpose, and grace. Jesse Jackson was a force of history — a moral voice, a builder of bridges, and a champion for those whose voices were too often ignored. His legacy will live on not only in books and speeches, but in the lives he touched and the progress he helped make possible. My deepest condolences to his beloved wife, Jacqueline, his children, and all who loved him.”
A recording of a Jackson speech won a Grammy in 1989 for best spoken word or non-musical recording. He had been nominated on two previous occasions, in 1980 for best soul gospel performance, contemporary for Push for Excellence, and in 1985 for best spoken word or non-musical recording for Our Time Has Come.
In 1988, Jackson received the President’s Award at the annual NAACP Image Awards. In 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest honor bestowed on civilians.
Jackson was born on Oct. 8, 1941, in Greenville, S.C. In the summer of 1963, at age 21, Jackson traveled to Washington, D.C., where he heard Dr. King deliver his landmark “I Have a Dream” speech. Two years later, he and a group of college friends drove to Alabama to participate in King’s Selma-to-Montgomery march. He met King there. Early the next year, King asked Jackson to head his Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Operation Breadbasket in Chicago. At 24, Jackson was the youngest of King’s aides.
In April 1968, Jackson joined King in Memphis, where the civil rights leader had agreed to stand in solidarity with striking sanitation workers. The next day, King was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel where he and his team were staying in Memphis.
As Jackson’s media prominence grew — including a cover feature in Time magazine in 1970 — so too did tensions between Jackson and SCLC. In late 1971, SCLC’s board suspended Jackson for “administrative impropriety” and “repeated violation of organization discipline.” Jackson resigned and formed his own organization, PUSH – which originally stood for People United to Save Humanity before being amended to the less grandiose People United to Serve Humanity. Like Operation Breadbasket, its goal was to boost minority employment and ownership.
From the moment he began urging and registering Black Americans to vote, Jackson had found his calling – to empower African Americans and anyone else who had felt left behind. They responded to his signature rally chant, “I am somebody.” Jackson used PUSH resources to staff get-out-the-vote drives that helped elect Black mayors in Gary, Indiana; Newark, New Jersey; and Cleveland, Ohio.
Jackson was the first Black candidate for president to attract a broad following and to give rise to credible speculation about his chances. He received about 3.5 million votes in Democratic primaries in 1984 — roughly one in five of those cast. Former VP Walter Mondale won the nomination, and selected New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, not Jackson, as his running mate.
Four years later, he ran again, this time winning 7 million votes, second only to the eventual nominee, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis. Jackson’s hourlong speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention brought many delegates to tears. Again, Jackson was passed over for the VP nomination, this time in favor of Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen.
Jackson had a complicated relationship with Clinton. In the 1992 campaign, Clinton used Jackson as a foil in what became known as the Sister Souljah moment. Jackson invited a little-known rap singer and activist, Sister Souljah, to a political event featuring the Arkansas governor. In an interview, Souljah had been quoted as saying: “So if you’re a gang member and you would normally be killing somebody, why not kill a white person? Do you think that somebody thinks that white people are better, are above and beyond dying, when they would kill their own kind?”
Clinton, in her presence, took issue with her words. “If you took the words ‘white’ and ‘Black,’ and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech,” the candidate said. The moment burnished the image Clinton was trying to build as someone who was willing to stand up to the party’s special interests and most loyal voting base. But the gain for Clinton came at Jackson’s expense. Nonetheless, Jackson had hoped to be selected as Clinton’s VP, but on July 9, Clinton announced Tennessee Sen. Al Gore as his choice instead. Eight years later, in August 2000, President Clinton awarded Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Jackson’s prominence waned in the 2000s, in part because there were now so many Black leaders in politics, business and entertainment that the idea of one Black leader who spoke for the entire community seemed passe. Jackson was on hand at Grant Park in Chicago when President-elect Obama accepted his victory. Jackson wept, moved that the moment had finally come and saddened, perhaps, that the doors were not nearly so wide open when he ran in 1984 and 1988.
Jackson is survived by his wife, Jacqueline, and six children, Jesse Jr., Yusef, Jonathan, Jacqueline, Santita and Ashley.
